Leah O'Donovan

Well, a lot has happened in the past 48 hours. Let’s start with tonight’s session. It’s the second in the programme but the first time you’ll have heard of it because I skipped the first one as it was the day after we got back from Norway and there was no way in hell I was getting up at 6.00am to do it. Tonight was a Fartlek session. Fartlek means ‘speed play’ in Swedish. Basically, you run at comfortable pace and find a landmark anywhere from .25 to .5 miles away, like a lamp post or road sign. You then run flat out, as hard as you can maintain until you reach the landmark. You then jog slowly until you feel recovered and repeat as many times as you can in a given mile or time limit. Tonight was a six mile Fartlek with a mile warm up and cool down, for a total of eight miles. I like Fartlek sessions. They are entirely unique and you make them your own. You decide how fast and how often you speed up and how slow and how long you take to recover.  I was very happy this evening to be able to maintain with relative ease 7:30 per mile pace. That’s very, very fast for me and it feels good to know I’ve managed to get so fit. Now, though, I turn to the other part.

I went to the Physiotherapist again last night for a sports massage. I mentioned that my feet were killing me after long runs and the plantar fasciitis had flared up again in the left foot and seemed to have appeared in the right foot as well. I know my hip flexors are tight and I could feel everything tightening up throughout the legs over the past few weeks. The right leg, it seems, has gone completely haywire. I was wincing in pain when he was massaging my right quad and right calf. While it is not likely to be PF in the right foot, it is some sort of overload injury causing the pain. My hip rotation was well under par and he worked on my hips and glutes, driving his fist – or possibly elbow, I wasn’t able to see nor did I care – into my buttock while stretching my leg the other direction to loosen everything up. It was not your normal relaxing massage. He did other stretches and massage to try to loosen up those hips. They were still relatively tight by the end but had loosened up enough.

So, what’s causing this? Biomechanics; the makeup of my body and the way that I run causes my muscles to tighten up. My form drops after so many miles and my muscles are struggling to cope and, therefore, taking the feet with them. The body is like a chain when you’re running. The upper body, abs, core strength, hips, quads, calves and feet are all ‘connected’ and if one thing goes wrong, it can affect the rest below. It’s not marathon ending by any means but I do need to do some things over the next six weeks to ensure I make it to the start line intact.

I’m going to do core ab work on my rest days and Saturday. This is not just crunches. This is working the inner abdominal muscles that give you posture and help your body to walk and run. I’m going to increase my stretching after each run to two-three rounds and also stretch on my rest days. I’m going to buy a foam roller thing that I will roll on the floor with in cries of agony (so I’m told) to massage, stretch and loosen up the leg muscles. Finally, I’m going to add in a few leg squats with just a broom for balance using my own body weight rather than actual weights. This is to avoid introducing anything drastically new so close to the marathon as per the advice of my fellow running forum-ites.

So, in two words: this sucks. There are remedies but I’m still disappointed that my body is not coping and rebelling in a fashion. I really want to do this marathon and am hoping and praying that my body heals itself or adapts again to the running load. Thankfully, this is actually my highest mileage week at 47. From here to the marathon it is all downhill relative to this week. If you’re the praying type, please do keep me and my poor legs and feet in your prayers. Pray that I don’t fall apart bit by bit by bit between now and 23 May. I like being whole, thank you.